Sunday, March 21, 2010

The most powerful of these is the sky

Excellent coverage from today's Sunday Telegraph on the devastating impact of Mongolia's harsh winter. Perhaps surprisingly for the Sunday Telegraph, the article suggests that the impact of the natural disaster has perhaps been exacerbated by the country's move away from its former 'Soviet-inspired co-operative agriculture system' towards market-driven reforms.

I was particularly struck by the description of one herder:

'Baavankhon worships the land that sustains him, making offerings to a sacred mountain but in recent years, he says, people have been cutting firewood from the holy places; just one example of how the ancient compact with nature has been broken in modern Mongolia.'